


late september rose, you can't grow here

by zachas



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: .... sort of. nolan's heart eyes make me believe in love at first sight, Friends to Lovers, Love at First Sight, M/M, Magical Realism, Nature Magic, Non-Linear Narrative, also sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 07:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14075502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zachas/pseuds/zachas
Summary: Nico Hischier smiles like the sun coming out after rain — bright, blinding, beautiful.(That’s maybe a little dramatic. It’s still true.)But of course, Nolan didn’t know his name then. No one really did.(Or: Nolan finds a new home, and falls in love. In no particular order.)





	late september rose, you can't grow here

**Author's Note:**

> alternate summary: the one where nolan is a flower.
> 
> thanks to amy for like, reading this over in the early stages and just generally being there and being awesome. ur the best
> 
> and thanks to steph for reading this over for me and cheering me on and being general moral support while i was dying trying to put this together. ily!!!
> 
> title from the song september rose by cailin russo

Nolan was born in September, and it was snowing.

Maybe his parents should have known.

 

He was such a loud baby, his mother always tells him. Just wouldn’t stop crying. But the moment they brought him outside, in the snow, he instantly quieted. Just sucked on his thumb and stared at the fat snowflakes falling from the sky like it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen, and it probably was, because you know. Newborn baby and all.

It was late when they got home, so Nolan’s parents put him to sleep in his crib and went to their own beds, eager to get in at least a little sleep before inevitably waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of distressed cries, but to their surprise, Nolan made it through the whole night without a peep.

They found him in his room in the next morning, sound asleep, and with bright blue roses blooming over him, their thorny black stems curling around the bars of his crib, their pretty petals scattered in his hair. And really, they probably shouldn’t have been so surprised, but they were.

Winter roses are pretty rare, you know?

\---

Nolan is at World Juniors, and he can’t play. It fucking sucks.

There’s a Canada-Switzerland exhibition game happening soon, so it really isn’t much of a surprise when Nolan spots a bunch of the Team Switzerland guys milling around in the rink.

Nolan’s not really paying much attention to any of them, really, but for some reason, someone catches his eye, so he turns his head and looks.

The guy in particular has dark hair and is walking with someone else, and Nolan doesn’t hear what the other guy says but it must be pretty funny because the dark haired guy throws his head back and laughs, and like, whoa. Wow. 

Nolan blinks. 

 

Nico Hischier smiles like the sun coming out after rain — bright, blinding, beautiful.

(That’s maybe a little dramatic. It’s still true.)

 

But of course, Nolan didn’t know his name then. No one really did.

 

 

Later on, Nolan’s in the press box, watching Team Canada warm up instead of warming up with them, and after a while, his eyes stray over to the Swiss side of the ice. 

He doesn’t know what he’s looking for until he spots him.

 _Hischier, 13,_ reads the back of his jersey.

Nolan swallows, then looks away. 

_Hischier, huh?_

\---

For as long as Nolan can remember, his mother has always had a garden in their backyard.

She would start the planting in late April, hacking away at the cold, still-thawing ground with her trowel, and when Nolan was little he would just watch, but when he was older he would help, kneeling in the dirt and helping her sow rows of seeds.

By the time the summer months came, the garden would be flourishing, and every day Nolan would help his mother bring in a considerable haul of vegetables: leeks, potatoes, onions, beans, peas, spinach, and more.

 

This is what Nolan remembers:

The merciless heat of the sun, shining down on his back; the juicy sweetness of one of their little yellow tomatoes, Nolan’s favorite, pulled right off the vine; the smell of dirt in his hair, on his hands; and of course, the bright purple of his mother’s morning glories, intertwining with Nolan’s own blue roses like a promise. 

(Or a trap.)

 

 

Sometimes, Nolan goes outside and lays in the grass and just breathes. Feels the gentle, pulsating warmth of the earth beneath him, and he understands. 

_This is where I’m supposed to be,_ he thinks.

Home.

\---

Nolan’s dad brings him to his first hockey game when he’s three, and he falls in love. That’s all there is to it, really.

Honestly, Nolan doesn’t really know why his parents let him play in the first place. Maybe they didn’t think he’d take it seriously.

(He might be a winter rose, but he isn’t meant for the cold. That’s not how it works.)

But there’s something beautiful, something mesmerizing about the scrape of skates against ice, about the crisp clack of a perfect, tape to tape pass, about the freezing rink air that burns Nolan’s lungs, and Nolan knows. There’s no going back now. That was never an option.

(Nolan falls in love with the ice, with the cold, with the beauty of winter. The problem is, you’re only supposed to fall in love once.)

\---

The Brandon Wheat Kings select him in the first round, fourth overall, and this, Nolan thinks, is the moment his parent realize he’s in this, for real.

It does not go over well. 

“You aren’t made for this,” Nolan’s mother says. 

(Which is true, maybe. The injuries were already starting to pile up, even then.)

“I’ve done it for this long, and I’m fine,” Nolan counters. 

“It’s far,” she says.

“Not really,” Nolan says. “Two hours.”

“But what about after?” she asks. “After you’re done with Brandon?”

“What about it?”

“Nolan.”

“Mom.” 

Nolan’s mother sighs, runs a hand through her hair. “This — This isn’t what we _do,_ Nolan. It isn’t safe! You _know_ what happens when you go too far from home.”

“It’s my life!” Nolan argues. “It’s my decision! You didn’t really think I was going to stay here forever, did you?” 

Nolan’s mother opens her mouth, then closes it. Opens it again.

“No, but—”

She stops. 

_You thought that I would always come back,_ Nolan thinks. 

 

In the end, she lets him go. 

\---

Nolan plays hockey, and gets hurt. Plays hockey, and gets hurt. Plays hockey, and gets hurt. Rinse and repeat.

He calls his mom every week, and she never says “I told you so,” but Nolan hears it anyway. 

It’s okay. He’s okay. 

_You’re delicate,_ his mother has always said, but he isn’t, really. Winter roses are tough, you know.

 _This isn’t what you’re meant for,_ his mother has said, but what is he meant for, anyway?

Nolan has always been a walking contradiction. It’s in his nature.

\---

Nolan meets Nico Hischier for real in Quebec City, at the Top Prospect Game. He flies in early because he needs to do some interviews and stuff, and of course, Hischier does too. Team captains, you know. 

They’re sharing a hotel room, apparently. That’s what they tell Nolan when he gets in. He doesn’t see Hischier at the hotel, though. He doesn’t see him at all until he gets shoved onto the ice in a Team Cherry jersey for some kind of promotional photoshoot, and then —

“Hey,” says Hischier. He’s standing on the ice, wearing a Team Orr jersey. 

“Hey,” says Nolan.

“I’m Nico,” says Hischier.

“I know,” says Nolan. “I’m Nolan.”

“I know,” says Nico.

Nolan bites back a grin. “Nice to meet you, Nico.”

“You too,” Nico says, and his smile is just as bright as Nolan remembers. 

 

The photoshoot itself is fine, just kinda awkward, if anything. Nico is quiet and focused, and Nolan is too, except that he keeps sneaking looks at Nico out of the corner of his eye, and —

“Nolan, for the last time, eyes over here,” one of the photographers says, a little annoyed.

Nolan winces. “Sorry.”

Nico smothers a laugh behind his hand, which inevitably draws Nolan’s eyes over to him again.

“The camera, Nolan,” Nico says, still laughing.

“Uh, right,” Nolan says, and he’s definitely blushing, but it’s fine. No one can tell. 

 

It’s a little after two by the time they finish, so after they both get changed, Nolan says, “Do you wanna go grab lunch or something?”

“Lunch?” Nico asks.

“Yeah,” Nolan says. “I mean, I don’t think we have anything else left to do today, or at least, _I_ don’t have anything else left to do today, so I thought —”

“That sounds good,” Nico says, and like, he really needs to stop smiling so much, for Nolan’s sake if nothing else.

(Nolan is distantly aware that he’s fucked. It’s fine. He’s fine.)

“Did you have any place in mind?” Nico asks.

“Uh, not really,” Nolan says. “I’ve never been to Quebec City before, so I thought we could walk around and explore a little bit.”

“Okay,” says Nico. He’s smiling again. “Cool.”

“Cool,” says Nolan.

 

They end up at a little cafe a few blocks away from their hotel, and it’s nice. Quiet.

“Ready for the game in a few days?” Nolan asks in between bites of his sandwich. 

“Definitely,” Nico says. “I’m excited to finally be able to play you.”

“Oh yeah?” Nolan says. “Me too. Looking forward to kicking your ass.”

“We’ll see about that,” Nico says, and Nolan laughs.

\---

The next day, everyone else starts coming in. Nolan chills with Stels for a bit, hangs out with the guys on Team Cherry as they wait for gametime, smiles at Nico, you know. Pretty normal stuff. 

 

The game itself is pretty fine.

Nolan’s lining up against Nico for the opening faceoff, and Nico gives him a little smile.

“Good luck,” he says.

“You too,” Nolan says, and then the ref drops the puck and it’s go time.

Nolan doesn’t score a goal, but he gets a couple of assists, so he’s happy with that. And Team Cherry wins the game, breaking a six year losing streak, so that’s also pretty cool.

“Nice goal,” Nolan says to Nico, after.

“Thanks,” Nico says, smiling. “You too. Your assists, I mean.”

“Thanks,” Nolan says, and he tries to not smile back like an idiot, but he doesn’t think it works.

\---

The next morning Nolan wakes up to the sound of Nico’s alarm, beeping shrilly from Nico’s nightstand. It stops pretty quickly, though, and Nolan keeps his eyes shut in a vague attempt to get back to sleep before his own alarm goes off and he has to get ready for the airport.

There’s a little bit of shuffling from the other side of the room as Nico presumably gets out of bed. Nolan can hear his light footsteps on the carpet floor as he makes his way to the bathroom, and the door clicks quietly closed behind him.

Nolan lies there for a few more minutes before he gives up on getting more sleep. He opens his eyes, and —

There are roses growing on his bed. 

Nolan blinks.

A huge mass of blue flowers are curled up tight around the headboard, still growing fast, their sharp black thorns digging deep into the polished wood.

Nolan stares up at them for a few minutes and frowns. This kind of stuff hasn’t happened to him since he was a kid.

 

Nico comes out of the bathroom while Nolan is in the middle of yanking the tangled vines off of the bed.

“Do you need any help with that?” he asks, as if it’s normal to find your friend trying to clean up flowers that have spontaneously grown on his bed overnight.

Nolan blinks. “Uh. Yeah, actually, that would be great. Be careful of the thorns, though, they’re pretty sharp.”

“Got it,” Nico says.

They work together in silence, methodically pulling all of the flowers off of the headboard. Nolan winces at the scratches left behind on the wood, but there’s nothing to be done about that. 

After they’re done, Nolan gathers up all the flowers in his arms and tries to open the door to their room’s balcony.

“Here,” Nico says, opening the door for him.

“Thanks,” Nolan says.

Nolan steps out onto the balcony and tosses the flowers over the side. As they fall through the cold air, the stems of the roses crumble into gray dust, leaving only their bright blue petals scattered in the wind.

“Wow,” Nico breathes.

“Yeah,” says Nolan.

The two of them watch the petals fall for a little while longer until the wind carries them out of sight.

Nolan clears his throat.

“I guess you probably want an explanation for all this, right?” he asks.

“Sure,” Nico says.

“So it’s like,” Nolan starts. “I sort of have like… plant magic.”

“Plant magic,” Nico echoes. 

“Yeah,” Nolan says. “It’s been in my mom’s side of the family since forever.”

“So what can you do?” Nico asks.

“I can like, speed up the growth of any plant,” Nolan says. “And I can grow winter roses wherever I want to. But only those, not any other plant.”

“You can grow them anywhere?” Nico says.

“Yeah,” Nolan says. “Like this.”

Nolan kneels down, places his hand on the floor, and concentrates. The concrete cracks beneath his hand and a thorny black stem sneaks up between his fingers. He stands back up and watches the rose rise up from the ground and bloom.

“Oh,” says Nico, his eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Nolan says. He grabs the rose and gives a sharp yank, snapping its stem in half. The half extending from the balcony floor crumbles into dust, but the half with the flower stays intact in Nolan’s hand.

“Wow,” Nico says. “It’s a very pretty flower.”

“Do you want it?” Nolan asks, then immediately regrets it. Guys don’t give each other _flowers,_ that’s fucking weird, Nolan, god.

Nico blinks, then smiles. “Sure,” he says, and takes the rose from Nolan’s hand.

“You don’t seem to be very surprised by any of this,” Nolan comments.

Nico shrugs. “I sort of figured, a little.”

Nolan stares at him. “How?”

“You always smell like roses,” Nico says simply. 

Nolan blinks.

“Stelio told me that he and the other Wheat Kings have an ongoing betting pool on what kind of cologne you use,” Nico adds.

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all,” Nico says very seriously and Nolan laughs.

“You know, this is the first time I’ve ever told anyone about any of this,” Nolan admits. “I didn’t really expect it to be this easy.”

Nico smiles, twirling the blue rose in between his hands. “Well,” he says. “When I was little, my mother always told me about these, ah, forest… forest… I’m not sure the word —”

“Spirits?” Nolan offers.

“Spirits,” Nico agrees. “We would take walks in parks and forests sometimes, and while we walked she would tell me stories about these forest spirits who would do anything to protect their homes. As long as they stayed on their own land, they would never die, so they would always stand guard, forever protecting the forest from evil. That’s why you always have to be respectful to nature, because if you aren’t, the forest will find a way to make you pay.”

“What happens if the spirits leave their homes?” Nolan asks.

“Then they get weaker and weaker until they die,” Nico says. “It’s the only way to kill them.”

“Oh,” says Nolan.

“When I first saw you, you reminded me of the forests in Naters,” Nico says. “I guess that’s why I’m not so surprised.”

Nolan ponders that for a minute.

“I’m definitely not an immortal forest spirit,” he says. “But I think I might be a descendant of one, or something. My mom’s never really told me much about our magic, but it makes the most sense.”

“Mm,” Nico agrees.

 

After a moment, Nico says, “Thank you for trusting me with this.”

Nolan laughs. “You don’t have to thank me,” he says. “Just don’t tell anyone else, okay?”

“I won’t,” Nico says. “I promise.”

The two of them stay out on the balcony a little while longer, watching the quiet, early morning bustle of the city beneath them before they have to go back inside and pack.

\---

When Nolan gets off the plane, there’s a snap from Nico waiting for him on his phone. He opens it.

It’s a picture of a small vase with a blue rose in it, a little rumpled and missing some petals, but otherwise still pretty intact.

 _It made it through the flight :),_ says the caption.

Nolan screenshots it and smiles.

\---

Nolan and Nico start texting and snapping each other a little after that. It’s nothing much, really, just them talking about random things, wishing each other luck on their games, you know. Nico snaps Nolan pictures of flowers from when he goes to the grocery store or when he’s walking around outside and draws little smiley faces on them sometimes.

(It’s really cute. Nolan tries not to screenshot them all.)

 _Good luck on your game!_ Nico texts him as he’s walking into the locker room.

Nolan’s in the middle of texting back a _thanks u too!_ when —

“Look at that smile,” Kale says, laughing. “Who’re you texting, Patty?” He snatches Nolan’s phone out of his hand.

“Hey, give it back!” Nolan says, making a grab for his phone. 

Kale ducks out from under Nolan’s reach and scrolls through the texts. “Wait, you’re texting Nico Hischier? Dude, when did you guys even become friends?”

Nolan grabs his phone out of Kale’s hand. “At the Top Prospect Game, dumbass,” he says. “We were roommates. He’s a pretty cool guy.” 

Nolan’s blushing now, for some reason. 

Kale raises an eyebrow.

“Shut up, Claguer,” says Nolan. 

“I didn’t say anything,” Kale says, but thankfully, he drops it. 

\---

Nolan’s lying on his couch, idly watching the draft lottery, when his phone buzzes.

 _Looks like Philadelphia’s picking in the top three,_ Nico’s text says.

 _wait are u watching the draft lottery too?_ Nolan texts back.

 _Yes,_ Nico replies.

Nolan chews on his lip, then texts, _do u wanna facetime? we can watch it together._

_Sure._

Nolan hits the FaceTime call button before he can lose his nerve.

Nico picks up.

“Hey,” he says, smiling.

“Hey,” Nolan says, smiling back.

Neither of them really pay that much attention to the lottery in the first half, because who really does? Nico tells him how Maxime Fortier almost burned down his billet family’s house trying to cook the other day and Nolan tells stories of all the times Kale’s tried to prank people and utterly failed, and before he knows it —

“Oh shit, time for the top three,” Nolan says, sitting up on the couch. 

“And the third overall pick goes to… the Dallas Stars,” the man on TV says, flipping over the card in his hands to reveal the Stars’ logo. 

“Okay, Philly or New Jersey,” says Nolan. “Wow. I still can’t believe Colorado didn’t even get a pick in the top three.”

Nico laughs. “They just have bad luck, I guess.”

“And the first overall pick goes to…” the man says. He flips the card over. “The New Jersey Devils.”

“Huh,” Nolan says. He watches the two GMs shake hands with each other on screen. “Okay. New Jersey or Philly.”

Nico grins. “That’s nice,” he says. “My mother has always said that red is my color.”

“Oh no way,” Nolan says. “I think orange suits you a lot better.”

Nico laughs. 

 

Later, Nolan plots the distance between Philly and Newark on his phone.

It’s only an hour and forty minute drive. That’s really not that bad. 

Nolan stares at his phone screen for a few minutes, then closes out of Google Maps and gets ready for bed.

 

He resolutely does not think about how far the both of them are from home.

\---

Nolan and Nico FaceTime now, whenever they have time. It’s like, pretty cool.

Stels squints at Nolan. “Did you get a girlfriend?”

“What?” Nolan says.

“You’ve been smiling a lot recently,” Stels says. “Like, a _lot.”_

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Nolan says.

“Hmm,” says Stels.

\---

“You know, when I was little, I used to talk to trees,” Nolan says.

“Did you, now?” Nico says. His face is dark, and the FaceTime video is crackly, but Nolan can still see the amusement in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Nolan says, shifting around on his bed. “I was a fucking weird kid, you know. No one really talked to me. But trees, they’re always willing to talk to you as long as you’ve got the time to sit and listen.”

“What would they say?” Nico asks.

“Oh, lots of things,” Nolan says. “You know, trees basically live forever, so they’ve got a lot of stories. They’ve seen shit. And they’re super smart, too, so you can always talk to them about your problems and they’ll try to help you as much as they can. It’s pretty cool.” And Nolan’s rambling a little now, the way he always does when he’s tired but not too tired, but Nico doesn’t seem to mind all that much, so he figures it’s fine.

“There was this old oak tree in my backyard,” Nolan says. “It was my favorite. I asked it for dating advice once.”

Nico laughs at that, and like — you’d think his laugh would have lost some of its magic by now, that Nolan would have gotten used to it, but. 

“I know,” Nolan says. “I was such a weirdo back then.”

“Implying that you’re not still a weirdo now?” Nico says, grinning. 

“Wow, sick chirp, Nico. That one really hurt.”

“I try.”

They both lapse into silence then, but like, a good silence. A comfortable silence. 

“Did it have good advice, at least?” Nico asks finally. “The tree, I mean.”

Nolan snorts. “Not really. Turns out trees don’t really know that much about dating. Who knew?”

Nico laughs.

“Do you miss it?” he asks suddenly. 

Nolan blinks. “Miss what?”

“Your tree,” Nico says. “Home.”

“I—” Nolan stops.

And it’s dumb, like really dumb, especially because he’s only a two hour drive away from Winnipeg, and it’s not like he left his family behind and traveled to a whole entire new country like Nico did, but—

“Yeah,” he exhales, and he didn’t really realize just how much he did until he said it, but he does. It hits him, then, like a sack of bricks to the chest, and he closes his eyes.

 

“Me too,” Nico says, soft, quiet, and somehow, that’s enough. 

\---

The rest of the season is what it is. Nolan fucks up his leg in the last game of the season and can’t play in the playoffs. He really wanted to punch something when they told him, but he didn’t do it because he couldn’t risk like, breaking his hand on his pillow or something since apparently all his bones are made of fucking glass. 

It doesn’t matter anyway, because the Wheat Kings end up losing in the first round, and it fucking sucks, but Nolan deals. Okay, he sulks a little bit when he’s alone, and then after Halifax gets eliminated in the Q playoffs, he FaceTimes Nico and sulks a little with him, too.

But he deals with it, and soon enough, it’s time for the combine, and after that, the draft. It’s a little overwhelming, Nolan isn’t going to lie. But when he gets to Buffalo, they tell him he’s rooming with Nico again, so that kind of rocks. 

“You know, this seems kinda like bad planning on the NHL’s part,” Nolan comments. He’s starfished out on his hotel bed, relaxing on the soft mattress as Nico unpacks his bag on the other side of the room. 

“What do you mean?” Nico asks.

“Well, they always try to hype up the rivalry between the first and second overall picks,” Nolan says. “What if it was actually real this time and we like, really hated each other? I don’t think that would end well.”

Nico pauses. “Well. It’s a good thing we like each other, then, isn’t it?” He flicks his hair out of his face and smiles, dimples and all, and Nolan laughs.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling up at the hotel ceiling. “Guess it is.”

\---

The combine passes in a blur of exhaustion. Nolan does eleven pullups, pukes on the Wingate, and does so many interviews it makes his head spin. At the end of each day, he doesn’t really have the energy to do much more than brush his teeth and fall into bed, and he’s more than happy when it’s finally over.

But then there’s still more interviews to do, and a bunch of other pre-draft shit, which is like, more fun than the combine at least, but still pretty draining. They go to Nashville and watch a game in the Stanley Cup Finals, and there’s the whole thing with the Devils scout telling Nico they’ll draft him if he throws a catfish onto the ice, which Twitter has a nice laugh about. Nolan teases him about it for like, a whole week.

They’re rooming together again when they get to Chicago.

“More bad planning,” Nico says, deadpan, but he can’t quite hide the smile creeping on his face.

“Guess so,” Nolan says, and Nico laughs.

 

Nolan knows it’s kind of lame, but he sticks pretty close to Nico’s side for most of the draft tour and pre-draft stuff. It’s just — Nico’s comfortable, familiar, and they’re lumped together for most of the stuff anyway, so it’s just easier. That’s what he tells himself, anyway.

They’re on Hockey Night in Canada one night, with Casey and Gabe, too, and they ask them all what country they would play for if they couldn’t play for their own.

“I’d go Switzerland for sure,” Nolan says without thinking, and then immediately regrets it.

“Nico has shown me a lot of pictures of it down there and it looks like a great place to play, so I pick there,” he adds for justification, and then regrets it even more.

“Good choice,” Nico says, his eyes crinkling a little at the edges as he smiles, and —

Nolan tries very hard to keep his face from bursting into flames as Nico gives his own answer to the question — “Well, that’s easy, Canada,” he says, still smiling — but also gives like, actual good reasons for it, like loving Halifax and all of his teammates on the Mooseheads. It’s not Nolan’s proudest moment.

 

Later on, they finally get back to their hotel, and Nico unlocks the door and sprawls out onto the closest bed, which happens to be Nolan’s. Nolan kicks off his shoes and lies down next to him.

Nico giggles.

“What?” Nolan asks.

“I can’t believe you said you’d play for Switzerland because I showed you some photos,” Nico says.

Nolan flushes. “Shut up,” he says. 

“Oh yeah, I’d go Switzerland for sure,” Nico says in a ridiculously deep voice. “For _sure.”_

“I don’t sound anything like that!”

“Are you sure?”

Nolan grabs a pillow off the bed and smacks him with it.

“Hey!”

“You deserve it,” Nolan says.

Nico grabs another pillow and thwaps him in the face.

“Oh, it is fucking _on,”_ Nolan says, and chucks his pillow at Nico’s head.

They launch into a full scale pillow fight, then, pelting each other with all the pillows they can find. 

“Get away from me!” Nico laughs, trying to duck Nolan’s attacks and failing. He jumps out of Nolan’s reach and grabs the big cushion from the little armchair in the corner to use as a shield. 

“C’mon, is that all you got, Nico?” Nolan teases. 

“Not even close!”

 

After they finish the fight, they both collapse onto the carpet, all sprawled out next to each other amidst a sea of discarded pillows, trying to catch their breath.

Nico pushes his sweaty hair out of his face. “Wow,” he says. “I haven’t had a pillow fight like that in a while.”

Nolan laughs. “Me neither.”

After a moment, Nico asks, “Did you mean it?”

“Mean what?” Nolan asks. 

Nico rolls onto his side and looks at Nolan. “What you said about playing for Switzerland.”

“I mean…” Nolan stares up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I guess.”

Nico grins. “But you don’t even speak German.”

“Yeah,” Nolan says. “But I’d have you.” And like, he meant for that to sound super bros, he really did, but it comes out too quiet, too soft, too open, and Nolan thinks, _fuck._

“Oh,” Nico says. 

He swallows, licks his lips, and Nolan watches his adam’s apple bob up and down his throat. 

“I,” Nolan starts, but he loses his next words somewhere in the space between Nico’s eyelashes and his lips, and — and —

Nico yanks him in by the collar of his shirt, and Nolan is falling, falling, falling. 

 

They break apart eventually to get some air, but only just, their foreheads still pressed close together. 

“Am I dreaming?” Nolan asks. 

Nico laughs at that, and Nolan can feel the light puffs of his breath on his face. His hands are still fisted in the front of Nolan’s shirt.

“I don’t think so,” he says. 

“Awesome,” Nolan breathes, and then they’re kissing again.

 

 

 

“You know,” says Nolan. “I like, really, really like you.”

They’ve migrated to Nolan’s bed, now, leaving only their rumpled shirts on the floor beneath them. 

“Really?” Nico says. “I couldn’t have guessed.” 

Nolan smacks his arm.

“Okay, okay,” Nico says, laughing a little. “I like you a lot too. I’ve liked you for a while, now.”

“Me too,” says Nolan. “Since like, World Juniors, probably.”

Nico blinks. “I didn’t even see you at World Juniors.”

“I know,” Nolan says. “But I saw you.”

Nico stares at him. 

“You were walking into the rink for a game, laughing at something someone said, and like, I just — God, I didn’t even know your name yet,” Nolan says. “I didn’t even know your name, but I was already gone on you. How fucking lame is that?”

“Oh, Nolan,” Nico says, and he pulls him in for another kiss. 

\---

Nolan thought he stuck a little too close to Nico’s side before, but he’s like, practically glued to him now. And he knows he might be being a little obvious, but it’s just — Nico’s right _there,_ with his dimples and his smile, and Nolan can’t bring himself to stop.

They’re doing the draft tour with the rest of the top prospects, and at the end, when they go to sign their names on the board, Nolan grabs a sharpie and writes Nico’s signature instead of his own, complete with a thirteen at the end.

Nico cracks up when he sees it. Then he grabs the sharpie out of Nolan’s hand and signs the board with Nolan’s name.

“That doesn’t look anything like my signature!” Nolan protests.

“Yours doesn’t look anything like mine, either!” Nico says.

Nolan makes an offended noise. “What do you mean it doesn’t look anything like yours? Look, I even put the little thirteen at the end, like you always do!”

“... I _guess,”_ Nico concedes. 

Nolan laughs, and then Nico laughs too, in that way he does, with his eyes all scrunched up and his dimples out in full force, and _god,_ Nolan wants to kiss him.

But he doesn’t, of course. Better save that for the hotel.

\---

So. Philly.

Dropping to second definitely stings a little, but not as much as Nolan had thought it might. He’s like, sixty percent sure that it’s probably only because it’s Nico who got picked first instead of him, though, so.

But hey, second is still pretty good. And somehow, Nolan has a feeling that Nico would fit with the Devils better than Nolan would, anyway. Call it a gut feeling.

 

Nolan comes back home, back to Winnipeg, for the summer, and thinks about the thousand and five hundred something miles that separate him and his new team. 

He’s not scared. He’s been away from home before. Hell, he did it with Brandon for like three years. He can handle it. 

\---

Nolan’s not sure where it all started going wrong.

Training camp goes fairly well, barring the whole like, face infection thing, which, Nolan still has no idea how the fuck that happened. Nico calls him and laughs about it for like, five minutes straight, but only after he makes sure that Nolan’s okay first.

The guys on the team are all pretty cool. Claude is a good captain, and Nolan assimilates into the locker room pretty easily.

After it looks like the Flyers want to keep him up, Nolan moves all his stuff from his hotel room to the guest bedroom in Claude’s house. The first thing he notices when he walks into the kitchen is the little indoor planter box sitting on the windowsill.

“You ever grow anything in there?” Nolan asks, nodding to the box.

“Ryanne got some succulents last year,” Claude says. “But they all died.”

“Wh —“ Nolan laughs. “How do you kill succulents?” 

“Beats me,” Claude says.

 

Nolan starts the season on the Flyers opening roster, but something doesn’t feel right. Something sitting deep in the hollow of his chest whispering _this isn’t where you’re supposed to be,_ but Nolan ignores it.

Nolan scores his first NHL goal pretty quickly, which is pretty awesome, but other than that, things don’t go very well. But it’s the NHL. Of course it’s not gonna be as easy as it was in juniors.

But it’s just — the games pass by, and he skates hard, gets to the net, tries to make plays but nothing fucking works, nothing feels _right,_ and he can’t figure it out, can’t do anything but grit his teeth and try harder.

“The NHL is hard, Nolan,” Nico says from Nolan’s phone. “It makes sense that you’re having trouble adjusting. Everyone does.”

Nolan sighs. “Yeah, I know that, but it’s like… I know I can do better than what I’ve been doing, I _know_ it. But nothing’s fucking working and I don’t know _why.”_ Nolan rolls over onto his stomach and sighs again. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“ _Nothing’s_ wrong with you,” Nico says firmly. “It’s just a little slump. You’ll get over it soon, just wait and see.”

“Yeah,” Nolan says. “Yeah, I guess. Anyway, how was your day? How was your game? I saw your goal.”

Nico grins, wide and bashful, and yeah, Nolan is never gonna get used to that smile. “You did?”

“Yeah, I did. It was fucking sick, like seriously…”

\---

The moment Nolan gets hit, he knows it’s bad.

The guy wasn’t even aiming for his head, is the thing. Not even close. But Nolan’s head snaps back and slams hard against the glass, and _fuck._

He doesn’t remember falling, but suddenly, he’s lying on the ice, clutching his head. There hasn’t been a whistle yet, so Nolan grits his teeth and tries to pull himself to his feet. The world swims around him and he squeezes his eyes shut.

There’s the whistle. Nolan barely registers it. One of the trainers hops over the boards and helps guide him back to the bench and to the locker room.

They go through the whole concussion test, but there’s no need. Nolan already knows.

_Fuck._

\---

Nolan spends the first week or so after the hit languishing in his room with the lights off and the blinds drawn. Claude checks on him periodically, tells him when it’s time to go downstairs and eat, dials Nolan’s mom’s number for him so that Nolan can talk to her without looking at any bright screens, that kind of thing.

Claude knocks on his door and comes in. “Hey, Nolan?”

“Yeah?” Nolan says.

“Nico Hischier’s on the phone for you.”

“Oh,” Nolan says. He sits up and holds out his hand for his phone. Claude hands it to him.

“Thanks, G,” Nolan says.

“Yeah, no problem,” Claude says. He turns and leaves the room.

“Hey Nolan,” Nico says softly.

Nolan lies back down on the bed with the phone to his ear. “Hey Neeks,” he says.

Nico laughs. “You’ve never called me Neeks before.”

“M’tired,” Nolan murmurs.

“Are you okay?” Nico asks. “I saw the video of the hit. Didn’t look good. And then you weren’t responding to my texts, so I was worried, but I didn’t call because I didn’t know if you were resting or talking to your mom, maybe, or…” He trails off.

“I’m sorry,” Nolan says quietly. “I meant to call you but I just… I don’t know. And sorry about the texts. Can’t really look at screens right now.”

“Concussion?” Nico asks.

Nolan closes his eyes. “Yup.”

“I’m sorry, Nolan,” Nico says.

“I knew something was wrong,” Nolan says. And he knows it’s only a concussion, but it’s so much more than that it’s — it’s the knot deep, deep in his chest that this isn’t _right,_ it’s all the feelings swirling around in his aching brain that he can’t find the words for. 

“I’m sorry,” Nico says.

“I knew something was gonna go wrong,” Nolan whispers.

\---

A few weeks of resting and many more visits to the doctor and the trainers later, Nolan’s feeling a lot better. He still has an awful headache, but at least he can stand up without feeling dizzy anymore. The doctor tells him he can have fifteen minutes of reading and screen time per day and that he’s allowed to do some light exercise, so Nolan isn’t totally bored out of his mind.

It really sucks, though, to be stuck at home doing nothing most days or watching games in the pressbox while the rest of the team plays, but at least it gives him plenty of time to figure out what is going on.

It takes him a few more days to realize what it is.

He’s lying outside in the yard, on the grass, because Claude is at morning skate and Ryanne went out for brunch with friends so neither of them will yell at him for being outside in the cold and he needed some air. 

It is kind of cold, to be fair, but Nolan’s got a jacket on, and besides, he’s from Winnipeg. He can handle it.

He’s staring up at the sky, and the branches of an old oak tree sway gently above him. At least, Nolan thinks it’s an oak tree. It looks an awful lot like his tree back home, so it probably is. 

He closes his eyes and thinks of his old oak, in his backyard back home, of the warm summer sun on his back as he clambered up its branches, the rough bark scratching his palms, and suddenly, there’s a sharp pang of longing stabbing his gut, like someone’s got a knife and is twisting it in deep. 

There he is, lying in the yard of strange new house in a strange new city with a strange new rink and a strange new team and _god,_ he misses Winnipeg. He misses the bitter winters, the warm summers, the bustling city streets, the sweet yellow tomatoes from the garden, and his mother’s purple morning glories, their vines tangled along the railing of their deck, their petals twisting open to greet the morning sun; he misses _home,_ and it feels like someone’s ripped a gaping hole in his chest where it should be, and it hurts.

Nolan exhales a deep breath, then reaches for his phone.

 _i think i figured out what’s wrong,_ he texts Nico.

A few seconds later, Nolan’s phone rings.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Nico says.

“I think it’s just —” Nolan rakes a hand through his hair. “I’m too far from home. Which sounds really dumb when I say it out loud, but like, my mom always told me it’s dangerous to stray too far from home because it’s not good for people like us, and then you told me about how the forest spirits weakened and died if they went too far from home, so like, I think I’m probably experiencing something similar to that, except obviously I’m not dying, but I’m getting weaker, and it’s affecting my hockey, and I bet that’s the reason I get injured so easily. And I thought I could handle being away from home because I did it in Brandon for a while, but Brandon isn’t really that far, and even then, I was still getting hurt all the time.”

“And now you’re in Philly,” Nico says. “Which is a lot farther from Winnipeg than Brandon.”

“Yeah,” Nolan says. “Shit, Nico, what the fuck do I do? It’s not like I can just, _be_ closer to Winnipeg. I don’t — I don’t know what I can do.”

“There has to be something,” Nico says. “Some way to fix this. There has to be.”

“I don’t know,” Nolan says. He laughs. “Fuck. My hockey sucks because I’m fucking homesick. I can’t believe this.”

“Maybe you can talk to your mom?” Nico says. “She might know something.”

Nolan shakes his head. “If she knew something, she would have told me a long time ago.”

 _You’re not meant for this,_ Nolan’s mother has always said.

For once, he gets it.

“I —” There’s some shuffling around on Nico’s end, and then he says, “Shit, sorry Nolan, I have to go, but I’ll talk to you later, okay? We’ll figure this out.”

“Okay,” Nolan says. “See you.”

Nico hangs up, and Nolan lets his phone fall from his hand into the grass. He lays there for a few seconds

A little breeze rustles the branches of the oak tree above him.

“Do _you_ know what I should do?” Nolan asks the tree.

The oak lifts its branches and up and down, like a shrug. _I don’t know,_ it says. _What have you always done?_

“I don’t know,” Nolan says. “That’s not really helpful.”

The oak doesn’t say anything in response.

Nolan sighs and gets up from the ground, brushing the grass off his clothes. It’s probably time for him to go back inside, anyway.

 

 

Later, Nolan gets a text from Nico.

_Who said that home can only be in one place, anyway?_

Nolan stares at it for a long moment.

 _Huh,_ he thinks.

\---

Later that day, Nolan asks Ryanne to buy something for him when she goes out.

Ryanne laughs. “Really?” she asks. “I didn’t peg you as a person who has a green thumb, Nolan.”

Nolan smiles at that. “Well, I helped my mom in her garden sometimes. And besides, I’m going a little stir crazy without something to do, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Ryanne says. “Don’t worry, I got you.”

“Thanks,” Nolan says gratefully.

 

She drops the seed packet on the table for him later that night, but Nolan doesn’t plant them then. 

 

The next morning, Nolan makes his way quietly down the stairs, careful not to wake anyone, and heads straight to the windowsill planter box in the kitchen. He grabs the packet of seeds from where he’d left it on the kitchen counter and tears it open. He scatters the seeds over the soil in the box and makes sure to stick wooden skewers beside them before carefully covering all of them with dirt and watering them.

Nolan sets down the cup he’d used to water the seeds and takes a deep breath. It’s been a little while since he’s used his magic. Doesn’t have much use for it in the fall and winter.

He pushes his hands into the soil and thinks of warmth, of light, of old oak trees and summers in Winnipeg, of his mother’s garden and of his own roses, flourishing in the sunshine; of Nico, of months of texting and FaceTiming, of shared hotel rooms and dimpled laughter, of hidden smiles and the taste of his lips, soft and sweet; of Philly, of laughing with Claude and Ryanne around the dinner table, of absolutely destroying TK at Call of Duty and holding it over his head for days, of scoring his first goal at the Wells Fargo Center and drowning in the deafening roar of the crowd, the crowd that’s cheering for _him,_ and —

Thin green stems burst out of the dirt beneath his fingers, one at a time, each of them curling up around their skewers as they shoot up taller and taller. The tiny buds forming on their vines quickly grow bigger and wider, and suddenly, they’re blooming, all at once.

Nolan watches the familiar purple blossoms of his mother’s morning glories open to greet the early morning sun, just like they always do.

And it feels like — not quite home yet, he doesn’t think. But something close.

**Author's Note:**

> yes winnipeg is actually warm in the summer and u can actually grow all those veggies nolan's mom grew in her garden there! who knew
> 
> [tumblr](http://traviszajac.tumblr.com) \+ [twit](http://twitter.com/pavelzachas)


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